Thread: Atheists, Question About Evolution & Origins of Life?

But we know the biological mechanism involved in the process is natural selection. If you know the mechanism that is driving evolution then why do you need to introduce some unseen supernatural force?Edit- You seem to be satisfied with someone conceding that "it's at least possible". Even if something is at least possible that's a million miles away from being probable or being supported by valid evidence. Intelligent design is a hypothesis that is just lacking in evidence that shows it to be true which is why it can't and shouldn't be taught in any science class.

ID is a possible but not a scientific or reasonable explanation since it has no evidence and requires the arbitrary positing of a designer. It is just a childish magic wand pseudo-explanation.

"...science clearly has observed that new species and life can originate by means of Intelligent design."Evidence, please. Links and citations, please.And let me guess: You're head of the class at your homeschool, right?

"4. Therefore, Intelligent Design on Earth is a possible and logical alternative to evolution for the explanation of how life could have started, since it has been observed."1) Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.2) The THEORY of evolution explains the fact of evolution.3) The Intelligent Design "theory" can't be an ALTERNATIVE to the evolution theory unless it EXPLAINED the process of evolution.

I suggest that you discover for yourself the definition and philosophy of the word "science". We who ascribe to the scientific method would note that accepting a holy book as a template on which to place the facts is not doing science at all, instead, you are simply using apologetics to "prove" your point-which in this instance is rather badly, eh?

we can't "automatically rule out" the existence of the monster under the bed. But since there is ZERO EVIDENCE FOR IT, it's insane to believe it exists.Opinions without any evidence to back them up are not science and should not be taught.This is like asking, since it's possible for humans to drop water from great heights, if it's possible that rain does not occur naturally.

Yawn....Intelligent design is out dear, it's intelligent falling that is fashionable this year. Please update your rant.Peace & parmesan...

Heh, 'evidence/assumptions'. Look, on the off-chance that you're not a troll I suggest you pick up a book about evolution, maybe a 'popular science' book if you don't have a scientific background. Dawkins''The Blind Watchmaker' settles your arguments quite well, for example.

If a new species can occur by means of a designer, how can we automatically rule out the possibility of a designer creating life on Earth in the first place? It's not possible to rule out the idea that the planet was created, there just is no evidence to suggest that it was. Especially in light of the existence of other worlds around other stars, not unlike our own, habitable worlds appear to be a naturally occurring phenomenon of the universe. http://www.extrasolar.net/planettour.asp?StarCatId=normal&PlanetId=156So it's not that science excludes God, but rather that science says nothing at all about God, it simply explains so we can understand.Consider for a moment, what if some super-powerful being or entity or civilization came to Earth, claiming to be God. We would have absolutely NO WAY of verifying that it was God vs. some random super powerful being CLAIMING to be God. How could we know the difference?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scaleHow could we assume a designer did not create all life forms, & write within the genetic code for the ability of life to adapt & change over time? That's the basis of evolution, there is no plan, it's just successful mutations over time. Who's to say God isn't using evolution to do his work for him?But because the more extraordinary claim is that God did it , vs. the result of some natural process that we can observe or even better one we can replicate.Here are a few undisputed facts below:1. New forms of life have been created by an intelligent designer in a lab. This has been observed in nature & is scientifically testable. New developments/life/speciation has happened WITHOUT the evolution/natural selection process. (Fact-scientists creating new species/life by altering genes & creating new genetic codes).Yes, we are close to being able to create entire biospheres of life. 1000 years from now, it's entirely possible that if we don't blow ourselves up, & if it doesn't already have life, a biosphere based on Earth life forms will exist on Mars, complements of Humanity's desire for another world to live on. 2. Therefore, not all forms of life or new species must come only from the means of evolution/natural selection. They can also come from an intelligent designer pre-designing a genetic code. Nobody ever said we couldn't design new life or improve on a natural system. This is the very basis of human civilization, we changed from being simple hunter-gatherers much like other apes - & learned to take advantage of crops & selectively breed them to our advantage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natufian_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_SteelCorn, has been farmed in the Americas for thousands of years, but when botanists found the "ancestor" of corn, it's a short Asparagus-like plant, that is barely edible.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize#Origin3. No one currently alive witnessed how life began on Earth, therefore everything is based only on evidence/assumptions. Exactly Correct. But those presumptions underlie our civilizations fundamentally. Humans have never seen electron, but we have an entire planet which runs machinery off of electricity from electrons. We don't yet understand the exact mechanism of how life went from a simple chemical soup, to a complex chemical soup to primitive life, but we are fast approaching an answer.Scientists could be wrong but are probably no more than 5-10 years from being able to competently explain exactly how life began as a natural pre-biotic molecular RNA soup.This is the one of the group of leading experiments http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15217990?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez. Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.P ubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedreviews&l ogdbfrom=pubmed4. Therefore, Intelligent Design on Earth is a possible & logical alternative to evolution for the explanation of how life could have started, since it has been observed. Well, any demonstration of humans creating or recreating the initial conditions of life basically are showing that AN intelligent species can understand the origins of life. It does not necessitate that, life on Earth was necessarily created by an intelligent agent / super powerful alien / God.We might want it to be , but that doesn't make it so.5. Intelligent design is even more testable than evolution itself, since a design could be created right now, &"true" evolution must be observed over millions of years. Actually that is not the case, & since this is what I do for a living, (finding evolutionary solutions to intractable engineering problems), by using computers & simulating tens of thousands of "generations" of evolutionary change , in just a few hours, you can produce remarkable variation & structures which are very curious.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/4427646/4427647/04427970.pdf?arnumber=4427970Even the trivial "Game of Life" is something that even novices find fascinating. John Conway, a mathematics student at Princeton, was working early simulations of evolution & developed this program, which has only two or three rules, but which produces complex & I'm sure many still undiscovered structures which are complex & operate, without having been "designed" at all, but which emerged spontaneously.These amazingly complex structures which change & which have all sorts of behaviors which are totally emergent, & are NOT designed but which can arise "naturally" within this environment, given the right conditions. The premise of Intelligent Design is based almost entirely on the idea proposed by Michael J. Behe , Ph.D. of Lehigh University, of Irreducible Complexity, unfortunately even a trivial experiment like Conway's utterly destroys the premise that complex systems cannot arise out of a system which does not explicitly design them.http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/behe.html (note the disclaimer)So while it's POSSIBLE that that Earth or the Solar System or perhaps even our entire Universe was created, by some super-powerful entity or civilization, there is no evidence to suggest that this has occurred and it's just not that likely based on what we know so far.Furthermore since Intelligent design presents no tests, or data, & there are no experiments to confirm the hypothesis , intelligent design is without merit. Schools can certainly teach what we know about the origins of life, but we don't know very much at the moment, & until whatever experiments are being conducted at Rensallier & elsewhere are eventually confirmed & proven, THEN we can teach children how to create life in a little petri dish in 5th grade.I actually think Intelligent design SHOULD Be mentioned in school, primarily as a counter-example, showing students why it is not science. Intelligent design - at the end of the day - fails as science & as religion, because it presents not theory other than "some structures are too complex, therefore an intelligent designer must have designed them", on it's face this is an unprovable assertion or speculation.So maybe it was a natural process, which is after all the most likely case, perhaps it was aliens, perhaps it was God, maybe it was a big black monolith , we don't know & until we do, that shouldn't be in the classroom.Scientific knowledge at present STRONGLY suggests that rather than intelligent design, a non-trivial biochemical process can occur that starts down the road towards complex molecular / DNA based life.

Good point.I agree that religion should not be taught to students. But if books are going to give a theory on the origins of life, it should also include intelligent design.Or, they should at least remove origins of life theories, and instead just include parts of evolution (without implying that evolution is how life originated).